NEED TO KNOW
Richard Marx broke into the music industry on rock radio. So when he became known solely as a balladeer thanks to ‘80s hits like “Right Here Waiting” and “Hold On to the Night,” it struck a nerve.
Marx, 62, tells PEOPLE that he’s always considered himself a rock music singer and songwriter — and “bristled at the pigeonholing” that happened once he found success with slower songs.
“[I bristled] at the dismissive, ‘You’re not really a rocker because you can sing. If you’re going to sing ‘Endless Summer Nights’ and ‘Right Here Waiting,’ you’re not really a rocker,’” he says. “F— you. Just because you can’t do both, I can do both.”
The Grammy winner — who released the new album After Hours earlier this month — points to other rock bands who’ve found success with ballads, like Journey and Nickelback, as more ammunition for his frustration.
Jamieson Mundy
“It also just annoyed me because historically, you look at a band like Journey and what are their biggest songs? The ballads. ‘Open Arms’ and ‘Faithfully’ and ‘Send Her My Love,’” he says. “Whether it’s Bryan Adams or Journey, it’s the ballads that seem to poke through. Even Nickelback’s biggest songs are the mellowest. So over time I started to go, ‘Well okay, it’s not just me. That’s just the way it boils down.’”
Marx says that as he’s gotten older, he’s come to appreciate his success more, no matter the label.
“With age comes, if you’re lucky, who cares? My life is great. Am I really going to devote energy and take the time to be pissed off?” he says. “It took a while for me to look and myself go, ‘Really dude? Just relax, just chill.’”
The change in attitude happened basically “overnight” for Marx, and says it’s now been “many years since I turned that corner.”
He points to the moments on stage when he’s singing his ballads and a room full of people are singing back to him, and the fact that his songs like “Right Here Waiting” have endured and are now embraced by a new audience.
“I see on TikTok and Instagram, 8-year-olds playing it on the piano and posting videos. Are you kidding me? That song’s almost 40 years old. That’s a privilege. I’ve completely done a 180 about that stuff,” he says.
Now, Marx is focused on his latest release, After Hours, his first album since 2022 and a love letter to the Great American Songbook. His intention was “to just make a record that people could put on when they’re cooking or when they’re having a drink or they’re just chilling out on a Sunday afternoon.”
“It was a really fun challenge, to see if I could pretend that it was 1948 and I was pitching a song to Sinatra,” he says.
